


These Are The Years We're Given

by Grinner_H



Series: 15 a Piece Prompt Challenge [7]
Category: Finder no Hyouteki | Finder Series
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Gen, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 05:49:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5445563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grinner_H/pseuds/Grinner_H
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For Prompt #37 - <i>Out of Time</i> (selected by <b><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashida">Ash</a></b> from <b><a href="http://insane-1.deviantart.com/art/200-Writing-Challenge-68163506">200 Writing Challenge</a></b>).</p>
    </blockquote>





	These Are The Years We're Given

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ashida](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashida/gifts).



> For Prompt #37 - _Out of Time_ (selected by **[Ash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashida)** from **[200 Writing Challenge](http://insane-1.deviantart.com/art/200-Writing-Challenge-68163506)** ).

**[but you'll always be my hero, even though you've lost your mind]**

 

Yuri loves with pain and angry despair, flimsily disguised as required discipline.

This is what Mikhail thinks, bent over the old kitchen table, its sharp corners biting into the center of his sweaty palms. His legs are set a little more than shoulder width apart. The cool edge of Yuri's hunting knife is warmed with the sticky slickness of Mikhail's blood. 

Yuri carves crosses into the flesh of Mikhail's back, _one for every sin committed,_ he says, and Mikhail _knows_ that those sins aren't - and never will be - his own. 

Sweat beads upon his upper lip, trails down the rigid muscle of Mikhail's back. He wonders if they run pink or crimson. Breath comes short and fast from his lungs. He thinks about the light that flickers overhead, painting dancing shadows upon the grains of the wooden tabletop. He thinks about the cool tile beneath the bare soles of his feet. He tries to think about anything but the blade tearing his skin and the scars it'll leave later. 

Mikhail Arbatov is eleven when he learns that love is hatred and forgiveness, intermingled.

 

**[stole my heart and made me bleed]**

 

Azumi loves with false hope that burns beneath a seductress's smile. 

This is what Mikhail learns, shoved bodily against a motel room wall, its peeling paint scratchy against the lines of his bared back. 

Azumi latches her mouth to his, catches the blond curls at his nape with bold fingers. Her ample breasts are pressed against him. Her lips traverse the path from Mikhail's lower lip to his jaw, to the rapid quickening of his trip hammer pulse which beats within his neck.

Azumi laughs a song against his skin, bites down even while her wandering hand slips his wallet from the back pocket of Mikhail's corduroys.

He watches her dance out of his reach, watches the teasing sway of her ebony hair in time with her footsteps, his wallet between her seemingly dainty fingers, and he thinks he is powerless to stop her.

Mikhail Arbatov is sixteen when he learns that loving someone isn't enough to make them stay.

 

**[everything that you've ever dreamed of, disappearing when you wake up]**

 

Yoh loves with a lie, concealed within the shadows of promises and looks that feel too real.

This is what Mikhail believes, leaning his shoulder against the rough metal of a streetlight, silently observing the man who's engaged in conversation with a teenaged girl, on the sidewalk across the street. 

How many years has it been? How many _decades?_

Mikhail tries not to count them, even though he remembers them well. He remembers _everything_ \- the strength in Yoh's body, the flavor of his cigarettes, the smoothness of his unblemished back. Mikhail can recall every scorching gaze, every fervid touch, every quiet breath in the darkness of Yoh's apartment, in the thin sheets of his bed.

The hair on Yoh's head now is more gray than black. There are lines on his face and hands where they never used to be.

Mikhail does not look a moment over eighteen.

When Yoh looks up as if he's suddenly realized he's being watched, when their gazes meet across the cars upon the busy midday street, there is a deep-seated disgust which smolders within the depths of Yoh's atramentous eyes.

Mikhail Arbatov is seventy-three when he learns that the only love that's unconditional is his own.

 

**[ahh here comes alone again]**

 

Fei Long loved without judgment, swathed within his raiment of scars unhealed.

This, Mikhail knows with no shred of uncertainty; even while blood sighs out from beneath the naked corpse of his friend, even while he cradles a body whose flesh has gone terrifyingly cold.

In the corner of the room, Yan Tsui sits with his head bowed to his chest, legs spread out before him. The picture of one asleep, were it not for the gun in his hand, the bullet hole in his head, the blood on the wall. 

Fei Long was the third person who knew of Mikhail's secret, the first who did not think him an abomination because of it. The very memory makes the blood thrum like some wild thing in Mikhail's veins, makes his shattered heart grief dearly for the vengeance which was robbed of him.

He tightens his hold upon the ravaged body, fingernails breaking the skin on Fei Long's upper arm. The world falls away around them. Mikhail fills the silence with his tortured scream.

He is two-hundred-and-fifty-nine when he learns that love means wanting to die.

 

**['cause everybody dies but not everybody lives]**

 

Akihito loves with freedom unhidden and passion unebbing.

This is what Mikhail doesn't understand as much as he envies, staring at Akihito's warm hand in his, learning the sound of his comforting laughter.

Akihito loves like he isn't afraid to be himself, loves like he'd never run out of it.

He smooths his hands along the scars Yuri once made, and Mikhail feels the muscles in his back untense. 

Strong fingers entwine in the curls on his nape, and Mikhail feels bolts of pleasure in place of temptation-masked deceit.

Akihito stares at him with desire evident in his hazel-eyed gaze, free from pain of judgment. 

And there is a single beat that pulses quiet and steady in a heart which - Mikhail had learned to believe - could never be reconstructed.

Akihito loves like life couldn't be lived without it. He pulls Mikhail down for a kiss and laughs against his lips, age-old eyes gazing fondly at Mikhail from a too-young body. 

"I can't help you die," Akihito says around a sincere smile that makes Mikhail's heart beat like it's trying to drum its way out of his chest, "But I can show you how to live."

Mikhail Arbatov is six-hundred-and-ninety-four when he learns that love is unstoppable.


End file.
